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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23398270">Home is Where the Witch Is</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan'>tisfan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Season of the Witch [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Bewitched Fusion, F/M, Modern AU, Sitcom, Witchcraft, suburban life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:49:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23398270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode 2 of the Bewitched AU</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Wanda Maximoff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Season of the Witch [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683061</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Something Wicked This Way Comes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerofthewolf/gifts">flowerofthewolf</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“These are all boring,” Wanda complained. “And wrong.”</p><p>“What’s wrong with a house,” Bucky wondered. Wanda had been poking at real-estate sites on the internet for the last three days. Apparently his apartment wasn’t going to do anymore, and Wanda was looking to move out to the suburbs.</p><p>Bucky was pretty sure he could afford a house in the suburbs, although he had never really considered the idea before. And the commute was going to be a bitch and a half.</p><p>“No one considers the flow of energy,” she said. “All these buildings have no emotional spirit. They’re as dead as a box of crackers, and about as interesting.”</p><p>“Are you talking about feng shui?”</p><p>“I’m talking about containing the energy of the house inside, of making it strong, and keeping our family safe,” Wanda said.</p><p>“Our family?”</p><p>“Well, just you and me, so far, but there might be more family,” Wanda suggested. “That is the goal, isn’t it, to have children?”</p><p>“Will they be witches?” </p><p>“They’re certainly not going to be <em>penguins</em>,” Wanda said. “Witchcraft is half innate, half training. They’re just a little more likely to be witches than your normal second grader.”</p><p>“Okay,” Bucky said. He filed that away under things to think about later. “So, you’re not happy with these houses. We can always have something built to specifications. Buy land, and build.”</p><p>“How long does that take?”</p><p>“Depends on what you want. Ten to sixteen months,” Bucky said. “Since I don’t think what you want is a customized box-house. All your cracker box houses can be moved around like building blocks. We can talk to an architect, find out what you’re looking for.”</p><p>“Sixteen months?” Wanda wailed. “That’s ridiculous, I can build a house in <em>four hours</em>.”</p><p>“Yes, darling, but people will notice,” Bucky said. “And you said you weren’t going to do obvious witchery anymore.”</p><p>“Is four months reasonable?” Wanda wondered. “I can make it look like your architect came in and built the house. Just. You know, <em>faster</em>.”</p><p>“Can you show me what you’re thinking about?”</p><p>Wanda smiled, delighted, and pushed the chair around to face him. He didn’t usually ask her to do much magic. She’d done some, of course, as she got adjusted to things like washing dishes (instead of just stacking them in the dishwasher where the water pressure smashed them to bits) and she didn’t much like dusting. His apartment was cleaner than it had ever been, and he hadn’t even had to buy a vacuum. He’d been borrowing his landlord’s about once every two months since he moved in.</p><p>She wiggled her nose and moved her fingers and she was cupping a tiny model home in her hands.</p><p>“Uh, that looks like the Hobbit homes got together with a Transylvanian castle and had a bastard cabin,” Bucky said. “No. No, no, no, people are going to think it’s weird, and they’re going to come by and stare at it.” </p><p>Wanda smushed her hands together, and when she opened them again, there was something a little less… noteworthy. Victorian style, three story.</p><p>“Is the tower necessary?” It wasn’t too outlandish, and certainly he’d seen Victorian homes that dotted up and down the East Coast. No one would stare too much.</p><p>“The tower is absolutely necessary,” Wanda said. “I need the top of the Tower.”</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>“Witch stuff,” she said. “Don’t worry, no one will notice.”</p><p>“We can probably find an original Victorian, if you want to take the time to restore it,” Bucky said, “that’s in our price range.”</p><p>“All right,” Wanda said, clapping her hands together. “Let’s go shopping for a house.”</p><p>“Today? It takes time to get an appointme--”</p><p>Wanda’s nose was already wiggling. “I think you’ll find if you call--” she handed him a card. “An appointment just opened up.”</p><hr/><p>When it turned out that Bucky’s biggest objection to moving wasn’t the work commute -- Stark was delighted to set up some sort of hard-light display in Bucky’s new home-office where they could talk and run diagnostics while a bright blue Tony Stark walked around the room, projected by a device on the ceiling (and Bucky complained about Wanda’s magic) -- or the smallness of the neighborhood, but that most of his friends lived in the city, and so he’d miss a lot of the spontaneous social activities, Wanda knew she had work to do.</p><p>Sam was easiest to relocate. She leaned on his boss and got him a promotion, that came with some moving expenses, and Sam found the perfect little rental, right in their neighborhood. Across the street. What a coincidence A month after that, Natasha stopped complaining and moved in with her boyfriend.</p><p> It had an attached garage apartment, and not long after that, Clint got evicted and ended up renting the apartment.</p><p>Steve and Peggy were harder, but Wanda did some tugging and poking, and then-- turned out Peggy had a long lost great aunt who died, leaving Peggy sole owner of a nice house just down the street.</p><p>“How lovely,” Wanda exclaimed when they were told the news. “We will all be able to have neighborhood barbeques!”</p><p>“You think your brother will come by?” Sam asked, because of course he did.</p><p>“I can ask,” Wanda said. </p><p>“That would make us popular in the new neighborhood,” Sam said.</p><p>Bucky nodded. “I haven’t even met him yet.”</p><p>He hadn’t met any of Wanda’s family yet. That wasn’t an accident.</p><p>“Well,” Natasha added, giving Wanda a suspicious look, “seems like a housewarming barbeque is the perfect time.”</p><p>This… was going to be tricky.</p><p>Wanda smiled. “Sure, sounds lovely.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Open Locks, Whoever Knocks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Father isn’t at all happy with you,” Pietro said. He popped in for breakfast, just after Bucky went into his office, coffee in hand, to have another one of those long-distance teleconferences with his boss. And by popped, Wanda meant that literally. One minute she was trying to decide if she wanted to attempt to do eggs the easy way, or the hard way.</p><p>The easy way meant magic, and if she magicked herself up a nice plate of poached eggs and salmon on toast with sauce, she’d also have to magic herself up the dirty pans and plates, because Bucky really didn’t like it when she “just grabbed food from who knew where.”</p><p>Wanda could have told him where, exactly, magicked up food came from. She’d taken a whole class on transubstantiation and a combination of the bits and pieces of literally everything. Food wasn’t a foreign matter, it was made up from the same manna as the rest of the world, just in a different order.</p><p>Honestly, creating food from nothing was probably <em>harder </em>than doing it the other way.</p><p>She had just decided to go ahead and make eggs her own way; Bucky wasn’t in the kitchen and she was hungry, when Pietro materialized in the kitchen and, in fact, stole her plate of eggs.</p><p>“Yummy, thank you,” he had said, taking a seat at the table. “I’m starved.”</p><p>Wanda had drawn in a deep breath, made herself another plate, and then, as an afterthought, had created the illusion of a pot, pan, and spatula in the sink. Bucky didn’t usually do the dishes until after dinner, so she’d have plenty of time for him to see them, and then forget that they existed.</p><p>“How’s Sokovia been?” she asked him, ignoring his opening remark about Father. She already knew Father was, as the mortals say, having kittens. There was nothing unusual about that.</p><p>“A little crazy,” Pietro said. “We had another annoyed ifrit. Picked up the city and tried to hurl it to the moon. We were all busy.”</p><p>“Did I see that on the mortal news? An earthquake?”</p><p>“You know how mortals are, always making stuff up to explain that which could just as easily be explained by magic.”</p><p>“They don’t believe in magic,” Wanda said.</p><p>“Sure they do,” Pietro said. “What they don’t believe in is magic they have no control over. Since they can’t do anything about it, they’ve decided not to believe in it.”</p><p>“Cynic,” Wanda accused him. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>“What, you didn’t see that coming?”</p><p>“Not a seer, brother mine,” Wanda said.</p><p>“You could have been,” Pietro said. “You could have been among the best and greatest seers.”</p><p>Wanda shook her head. “I didn’t like those classes.” Which wasn’t entirely the truth. What she hadn’t liked was the sudden, accidental discovery that she could, in fact, make the future in addition to just seeing it. She could put a thought in a mortal’s head -- or even another witch, with some effort -- and make it happen.</p><p>That was not power that anyone should have, and the sooner she got on with her mortal life and lost some of her abilities, the happier she would be. And the safer the world would be.</p><p>She hadn’t even mentioned it to her twin, much less her teachers. Certainly not her father, who would have wanted to keep her close, to use her abilities to shape the world.</p><p>Nothing was more terrible and frightening than a miracle.</p><p>“You didn’t answer the question,” Wanda said, chasing egg yolk around her plate with the end of her toast. “What are you here for?”</p><p>“I thought I’d visit. See what you’re getting out of this whole <em>being normal</em> thing.”</p><p>“We’d be delighted to have you,” Wanda said, sincerely. “I’m having a neighborhood barbeque in a few days. Bucky likes to grill food outside, and the neighbors and our friends will all come over and visit. But you’ll have to do it the mortal way.”</p><p>“Do what?”</p><p>“Get a suitcase, knock on the door, stay in the guest room. You can’t just pop around,” Wanda said. “Mortals don’t like that sort of thing, and Bucky wants us to fit in.”</p><p>“Suitcase? Really?”</p><p>Pietro went through a rapid fashion show, changing his outfit with that lazy grin of his, constantly switching it up until he found a combination that he liked.</p><p>“Suitcase,” Wanda insisted. “You don’t have to get dressed like a mortal, you’ll be in the privacy of your own room, but at least try to look the part.”</p><p>“Okay,” Pietro agreed. “Anything for my little sister.”</p><p>“Oh, like twelve minutes means so much,” Wanda snorted.</p><p>“Sure it does. It means twelve minutes!”</p><p>“Go on, play mortal, get a cab, a suitcase, and ring the bell,” Wanda told him.</p><p>Pietro popped out of existence again, leaving the plate behind. He could have at least taken it with him, but she supposed that was too much to ask. Men and dishes. If they weren’t asked to take care of it, they didn’t even see them. She put the plates in the sink.</p><hr/><p>“That was the doorbell,” Bucky said, glancing at the conference panel. </p><p>“We’re done here, anyway, we feel done here, right,” Tony said, and vanished. </p><p>Pepper’s image lingered a moment longer. “I hope you’re settling in,” she said.</p><p>“I am,” Bucky replied. He heard Wanda get the door, a muffled series of voices, and he worried. They hadn’t had many visitors, and he wasn’t sure if she was up to handling a salesman or the local Gardener’s Club-- “We’re having a cookout this weekend, if you and Tony would like to come.”</p><p>“That would be lovely, I’ll see if I can get it on the calendar.” Which was Pepper-speak for <em>probably not, but you get brownie points for pretending we’re real people who do things like go to cookouts</em>.</p><p>“Great,” Bucky said, and he meant it. He and his boss hadn’t always seen eye to eye -- their first few meetings, Bucky wasn’t sure he was going to kill Tony, be murdered by him, or throw him out a window, but they managed to make it work, and now he was very fond of both of them.</p><p>He disconnected from the call without too much haste, but practically raced to the front door. “Did I hear the doorbell ring--”</p><p>He knew that Wanda’s brother was a famous athlete, but he hadn’t really expected, in fact, to see a gold-medalist in his living room.</p><p>“Bucky, darling,” Wanda said, “look who’s come to visit? This is my brother, Pietro, and Piet, this is Bucky Barnes, my husband.”</p><p>“Nice little place you got here,” Pietro said, looking around as if <em>little </em>was the key word of choice. “Very… domestic. Normal. Ordinary.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Bucky said, aware that he was being snide and wishing he wasn’t, but really, he hadn’t been expecting Wanda’s famous brother -- who was also a warlock, and probably used magic to cheat in the Olympics, which made him sort of sleazy, but how could Bucky ever prove it?</p><p>“So, Piet’s come to stay a few days, see how I’m settling in,” Wanda said. </p><p>“Need to make sure my sister’s going to be okay,” Pietro added. “None of us have ever met you, and Father--”</p><p>“Is overprotective,” Wanda said. “And grumpy. And it’s not like he cared, up until I did something he didn’t approve of.”</p><p>“Well, it’s nice to have you,” Bucky lied. “I can take your bag up to our guest room.”</p><p>“Sure, bag. Right.” Pietro gestured to a suitcase, tattered, old, and covered with travel stickers. It barely weighed anything, and Bucky would have placed good money on it being entirely empty. </p><p>Well, maybe Pietro was trying.</p><p>“I’m going to take Wanda out shopping,” Pietro yelled as Bucky got to the top of the stairs. “She needs some new clothes. Consider it a wedding present.”</p><p>Well, at least he wasn’t going to have to make small talk for a while. Bucky tossed the suitcase onto the guest bed, and by the time he was downstairs again, they were gone.</p><p>He wasn’t sure if Pietro had a car, or if they’d just-- done that witchy thing.</p><p>He decided he was better off not knowing. Well, if nothing else, he could get the chores done while Wanda was out, and then she wouldn’t have to do them later.</p><p>Which was great, right up until he tried to wash the breakfast dishes, which refused to budge out of the sink at all.</p><p>“Wanda…” Bucky muttered, finally giving up on the pan and just leaving it there.</p><p>He really was just going to have to declare the kitchen a magic-free zone.</p>
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